"'Tisn't anything we talk about much, Nan. "Who told you?"
"Oh, it's been hinted to me by various people," said Nan, slowly.
"But I saw Injun Pete, Tom."
"When? He hasn't been to Pine Camp since you came."
Nan told her cousin of her adventure in the hollow near
Blackton's lumber camp. Tom was much excited by that.
"Gracious me, Nan! But you are a plucky girl. Wait till Rafe
hears about it. And marm and dad will praise you for being so
level-headed today. Aren't many girls like you, Nan, I bet!"
"Nor boys like you, Tom," returned the girl, shyly. "How brave
you were, staying to pull that old wagon-wheel out of the fire."
"Ugh1" growled Tom. "A fat time I'd have had there if it hadn't
been for you helping me out of the oven. Cracky! I thought I
was going to have my leg burned to a cinder.
"That would have been terrible!" shuddered Nan. "What would poor
Aunt Kate have said?"
"We can't tell her anything about it," Tom hastened to say. "You
see, my two older brothers, Jimmy and Alfred, were asleep in the
garret of our house at Pale Lick, and marm thought they'd got
out. It wasn't until afterward that she learned they'd been
burned up with the house. She's never got over it."
"I shouldn't think she would," sighed Nan.
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